Passenger plane skids off runway in Indonesia

A jet carrying about 100 passengers skidded off the runway into a shallow river as it landed in Indonesia on Tuesday, injuring some 20 people, officials said.The Merpati airline Boeing 737 broke into pieces as it bounced off the tarmac at Rendani domestic airport in Manokwari, West Papua, director general of civil aviation Herry Bhakti Singayuda told AFP."It skidded off the runway and part of its body landed in a river," he said, referring to a shallow waterway about 200 metres (600 feet) from the runway.

Related

An Indonesian passenger jet crashed into a cow and skidded off the runway as it came into land at an airport in the centre of the archipelago, officials said Wednesday. No one was killed or seriously injured when the Lion Air plane carrying 110 passengers collided with one of three cows wandering on the runway as it arrived late Tuesday in Gorontalo, on Sulawesi island.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — An official says a Lion Air jet carrying 117 people hit a cow while landing and skidded off a runway in eastern Indonesia. No injuries were reported, but the incident forced the cancellation of flights, stranding hundreds of passengers travelling for the Eid holiday.

PARIS: Airbus is betting on big jets as the future of aviation, while rival Boeing is gambling on smaller ones _ but both sold scores of planes of all sizes at the Paris Air Show on Monday, defying predictions of slowing demand. As industry heavyweights gathered in force at the Le Bourget airfield outside the French capital on the opening day of the 51st edition of the world's oldest air show, the informal race between the European and American plane makers produced promises or firm orders for more than 200 aircraft.

HYDERABAD: Air India is mulling expanding its Boeing wide-body aircraft feet to implement its plans of adding a host of new destinations in its overseas network in a couple of years. The airline is expected to draw up a firm plan in this regard early next fiscal, highly-placed airline sources said. As of now, the government-owned carrier has 40 wide-body or twin-aisle planes in its fleet -- 15 Boeing 777s, 21 B-787 (Dreamliners) and jumbo B-747, as against 68 Airbus single- aisle A-320 family aircraft.

As police investigate the two pilots of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 passenger jet that disappeared more than a week ago, a possibility they must consider is that one of them committed suicide by deliberately crashing the plane.
While such incidents have happened before, the topic remains almost taboo, with investigators and officials reluctant to conclude that a pilot purposely crashed a plane in order to commit suicide even when the evidence appears compelling.